By Rob Skubiak

Driving was once an efficient means of transportation, with strict rules and regulations to keep motorists safe and help them to be courteous to other drivers. In today’s fast paced, time-crunching society, driving has become more like a battlefield, where drivers are pitted against each other to see who can make it safely to their destination. So many people multi-task while driving that motorists have never been at a higher risk of being involved in an accident. You see them on your morning commute all the time; people on cell phones, PDAs, even shaving, reading the newspaper, and eating breakfast while driving to work. This creates a hazardous environment for everyone involved. The most common driving distractions are listed below, to inform you of what to watch out for.

#1- Cell Phones

You’re driving down the highway, and suddenly you get cut off, nearly causing an accident. Then you notice that the driver is on his cell phone, and not paying attention to the road. You toss a few expletives out the window and honk your horn at him, but he doesn’t even notice you. Ten minutes later, you’re driving along, and your phone rings. It’s your boss, you better answer it. But you aren’t like that jerk that cut you off, right? Wrong. No matter how competent you think you are at driving and carrying on a phone conversation, taking that focus away from your mind can always cause a distraction and lead to traffic violations or accidents.

#2- Kids

Oh, how we love our children. Thanks to modern technology, many children are kept peaceful in the car by means of televisions and DVD players, so that mom or dad can focus on driving. Unfortunately, kids are kids, and whether they are entertained or not, they can be a distraction. As soon as Jimmy starts picking on Susie, or Susie has to “go potty,” your brain is once again taken away from the task at hand: operating your vehicle. The main reason kids become a distraction, and a dangerous one at that, is because too many parents turn around to talk to them, pick something up for them, or to take something from them, while driving down the road. If you are looking in your backseat, you aren’t paying attention. Reaching for things and turning around while driving is a main cause of vehicles winding up in ditches and in minor fender-bender accidents. NEVER turn your back on the road.

#3- Getting Dressed/Putting on Makeup

For every person that gets up an hour early to get ready for work or school, there are another three or four people who simply don’t have the time, and do all of their necessary primping while driving. We’ve seen just about everything, too: men shaving on their way to the office, women putting on a full face of makeup (including eye makeup), people getting dressed, fixing their hair, and so on. If it can be done by getting up a little bit earlier, please do it. Nothing is mroe frightening than to be driving next to a car where the driver is more focused on their appearance than the road. Take the extra fifteen minutes and do it at home, and make the road a little bit safer for all of us.

#4- Eating While Driving

In today’s go-go-go society, you’re lucky if you get through a fast food drive thru in less than ten minutes, but what do you do once you get your food? Some people park and eat, while others take it home to enjoy, or to share with their familes. Unfortunately, too many people simply chow down while driving, which again distracts them from the task of driving and increases the risk for accidents and traffic violations. Snacking on some fries or even a burger isn’t necessarily that bad, but we’ve all seen people attempting to eat more complicated things while driving. If you’ve never encountered someone attempting to down a burrito or a salad while driving, consider yourself lucky. Even though most of us have been eating on our own since the early stages of toddlerhood, it’s still not a good combination to eat and drive. Especially when you’re more focused on your meal than you are on driving. Is it really worth the trouble of causing an accident or risking a traffic violation to save ten minutes? Next time you think about eating while driving, take ten minutes to park and enjoy your food instead.

#5- Stress

This may sound like the odd man out on this list, but if you have a lot on your mind, you’re not going to drive as carefully and as focused as the next guy who is only concerned with driving. We all have stresses in life, from bills, to work, to the kids, and so on. Although it’s hard, if you can work on shutting down your brain while you drive, you’ll decrease your chances of dangerous driving by allowing yourself to focus more on the road and less on your thoughts. We’ve all sat behind the zoned out driver that sits at a green light for ten or fifteen seconds until someone honks and brings them back to reality. Believe it or not, when many people get in fender benders or run stop lights or signs, the most common response is “I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I had a lot on my mind.” If you’re that stressed, try yoga, or writing in a journal. Even take ten minutes everyday to sit down and process all of your stresses and thoughts, so that you don’t have to focus on them when you should be focused on driving.

Anything that you do in combination with driving is bad. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the phone, thinking, eating, getting ready, or tending to the children; it’s all a distraction to what should be your only priority: driving safely. The more distractions you allow yourself to have while driving, the more likely you are to end up getting in an accident because you’re not paying attention to the road. We all think that we’re the best drivers in the world, and that we are fully capable of multi-tasking while driving. Whether or not this is true, you shouldn’t do it because you can. Just don’t do it because it’s safer not to.

About the Author: Rob Skubiak has appeared in courtrooms all over Florida defending his

Florida traffic ticket clients

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Official Website of Skubiak and Rivas, P.A. Florida Traffic Ticket attorneys / Florida DUI Lawyers

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I am sure that many people were fascinated by the Child Molestation Case (which later included money structuring and laundering), that was brought against Rev. Dr. Malachi Kobina York as I was. He is often referred to simply as Rev. York or Dr. York. I for one, followed the case which seemed to have conveniently come during the almost everyday news of Catholic Priests being charged with child molestation charges, Michael Jackson and R&B Singer R. Kelley are also high profile figures who were in the arena for illicit acts with minors as well. After reading the different articles that were posted in the newspapers that are local to the Eatonton, GA area, and listening to the OPINIONS of those who, let’s say, had a prejudiced bias towards the Nuwaupians, I too had begun to give in to the media’s reporting, that was often one-sided to be mild.

This all changed one day when I was in Atlanta, GA and saw a Nuwaupian out propagating the doctrine of the Nuwaupians that Dr. York says he teaches for the benefit of human-kind. This well-spoken and polite young man gave me a flyer and told me to look at the evidence with an open-mind and weigh it against what the prosecution had presented in the trial. One point that the propagator made that stuck with me and nagged at me was if there was such a slam dunk, open and shut, and airtight case against Dr. York, why did the prosecution seal the transcripts and close the court to the public? As I walked away, he left me with one thought, weigh our evidence against theirs and see who really won the case.

1. After reading the flyer it became quite evident why die-hard supporters of Rev. York still maintain to this day HE IS INNOCENT. The judge that presided over the case was U.S. District Court Judge C. Ashley Royal, which leads to the first point in the merit of Dr. York’s evidence. The Father-in-law of Dr. York was in the care of Oconee Regional Hospital and died. A subsequent law suit was filed by the survivors of the deceased against the care provider and the then attorney, C. Ashley Royal was their defense. Royal lost the trial and the family did get a settlement. This is one of the reasons the Nuwaupians feel there is no way as judge for the case, C. Ashley Royal could have been completely neutral. There were times during the trial when Judge Royal reportedly asked the prosecution why they didn’t ask certain questions or present certain things into into motion. There were also multiple occasions when he actually blocked the defense from calling witnesses to the stand who had direct contact and conversations with some of the prosecution’s witnesses that could very well have changed the outcome of the trial.

2. The lead investigator for the FBI, Juliane Ward, in her own testimony admitted that they did not have enough evidence to prove that Rev. York transported minors across state lines (The Mann Act) for the purpose of engaging in illicit acts with them. This is very significant because the notion of transporting minors for sexual purposes was supposed to be the basis of the whole trial to begin. One would think how could the trial even go any further after testimony from the lead investigator that she didn’t even have enough evidence to persecute.

3. The jury was tainted by pre-trial publicity and anonymously hand-picked by Judge Royal himself. Royal changed the venue of the trial which was supposed to be, as he indicated, to be in a place that was free of pre-trial publicity. The place he picked, Brunswick, GA, just happens to be his home town, where he obviously has more influence and power to say the least. There were six months that passed before the trial even began, which definitely destroyed by way of the media any chance for the whole area not to be influenced by pre-trial publicity. At the bond hearing, Judge Claude Hicks compared Dr. York to Jim Jones, Jim Baker, and Jimmy Swagger, presuming guilt through association. Soon there after, the arresting Sheriff of Putnam County, GA, Howard Richard Sills labeled Dr. York a serial pedophile- prior to a conviction.

4. The Federal Agents had the wrong name on the warrant when they came to arrest Rev. York. Their warrant had Dwight D. York listed as the one to be apprehended and it is very much documented that Dr. York’s full name is Malachi Kobina York. This is clearly a violation of his right to due process of law.

5. Judge Royal, being so hell- bent on exacting revenge against York, violated one of the very laws that he was sworn in to protect. On January 19, 2004, Judge Royal allowed trial to proceed, Case #5:03-CV-00422-2(CAR), this just happened to be the day that the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday fell. Many people may not know that this is a violation of a federal holiday of criminal procedure 6103 Rule 56 which states: “No Court Shall Be Held On A Statute Holiday.”

6. From May 8, 2002 A.D., all the way up to his illegal plea agreement on January 24, 2003, for more than six months, Dr. York endured torturous treatment. This was to include being placed in double solitary confinement, no phone call privileges, and being forced to remain in cell with temperatures as high as 95 degrees. Point being made here is that no where on Dr. York’s paper work was he listed as dangerous or a high risk of flight. Also, he was denied medical treatment for a condition that he suffers from called Hereditary Angioedema. This disease has symptoms of swollen respiratory passages and is triggered by stress, it can also be fatal if left untreated. I would like to remind the reader that Rev. York was a 57 year old man at the time of this mistreatment.

These are six points that I thought were quite interesting to say the least. There is a plethora more that are too numerous to list and explain in one article. However, I think the point of what the followers of Dr. York have been saying all this time should be clear by way of these few examples, that something stinks in the Middle District of Georgia for the 11th Judicial Circuit. It seems as if Judge C. Ashley Royal has given the whole state of Georgia a black eye that is going to take quite some time to heal. It also seems if thinking all the judicial misconduct by Judge Royal, would simply go unnoticed, unpublicized, and get swept under the rug, the 11th Circuit had better think again if the Nuwaupians have anything to say about it.

Article Source: sooperarticles.com/business-articles/press-release-articles/did-rev-dr-malachi-k-york-receive-fair-trial-292972.html

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Learn about how modern day lynching has ruined the reputation of a honorable man with the wrongful conviction of Dr. Malachi YorkAuthor: Alpha Mcguire